a reflection prepared for a service of remembrance marking 2 years of pandemic. Organized by the spiritual care department at the University of Manitoba. March 2022.
What is hope?
Hope is stepping into a new job and a new community—even during a pandemic. It’s forming relationships and making connections through Zoom, Tik Tok, Instagram and even oldschool email and text messages that aren’t everything they might one day be…but they’re also not nothing.
Hope is joining an online book club, class or training session to build on skills, gain new insight and develop competencies for the work you want to do even if it’s different than the work you’re actually doing.
Hope is leaning into traditions and rituals that look different but still offer meaning and reflection for the complex realities of the human experience. It’s telling stories from generations that have gone before us to remind us to extend grace to yesterday, hold today with open hands, and allow tomorrow to surprise us.
Hope is shouting at the clouds, screaming into a pillow, signing a petition or writing a letter because we can do better…we MUST do better.
Hope is lighting candles, shedding tears, and sharing stories in witness of loss and grief that hurts like hell but also testifies to the incredible power of Life and Love.
Hope is planting a seed even though winter has to come before spring…every time.
Hope is reaching out for help because who I am today is not who I might be tomorrow and there might be more to me than what I can believe in this moment.
Hope is exhaling…and inhaling…and exhaling again.
Caution. Release. Concern. Celebration. Hope is the force that moves us through the one into the other so that we continue on the journey and find our way forward into all that we cannot precisely define, but all that we yearn for, dream about, and envision as possible.
Where we were two years ago is not where we are today. Where we will be two years from now is not where we are today. And so we step forward. We hope. We exhale…and inhale…and exhale again.